Dynamic lighting and caves

Hi guys, i've made a massive (120x100) cave map of a goblin clan and am trying to apply DL to it.  I've gone round all the walls but it's made the map super long to load anytime i move a token (from what i understand this is because the map reloads every DL blocker everytime anything is moved).  Does any have any advice on how to mitigate this problem?  Is it the number of polygons i used?  In which using more blocky shapes would lessen the load?

That IS a big cave! Yes, reducing the number of lines will definitely help performance. Often folks like to pull back away from the exact outline of the cave walls anyway so that the players can "see" what it is that is blocking their line of sight. A bit more immersive this way. Just use a straight DL line slightly behind a jagged path on the map. Be careful not to go too far back, though, because you don't want players to be able to move their tokens "into" the walls (assuming you have Restrict Movement enabled)! If that still doesn't work, you can try cutting the map into multiple pages (worst case), or perhaps removing Advanced Fog of War if you have that on. Also make sure you don't have both Fog of War and Advanced FoW checked, as this can cause problems. Finally, it is recommended to use Legacy DL for the time being, as Updated DL is not really ready for prime time yet.

David M. said: That IS a big cave! Yes, reducing the number of lines will definitely help performance. Often folks like to pull back away from the exact outline of the cave walls anyway so that the players can "see" what it is that is blocking their line of sight. A bit more immersive this way. Just use a straight DL line slightly behind a jagged path on the map. Be careful not to go too far back, though, because you don't want players to be able to move their tokens "into" the walls (assuming you have Restrict Movement enabled)! If that still doesn't work, you can try cutting the map into multiple pages (worst case), or perhaps removing Advanced Fog of War if you have that on. Also make sure you don't have both Fog of War and Advanced FoW checked, as this can cause problems. Finally, it is recommended to use Legacy DL for the time being, as Updated DL is not really ready for prime time yet. Thanks for that.  if i disable fog of war the player POV seems to go completely black, even if they have darkvision set. Im also using the legacy DL as i heard the new one is still buggy. Maybe i should set the darkvision players to emit dim light out to their darkvision distance?

Yes, the common way to set darkvision is to go in the token settings and have the token "emit" dim light to the appropriate radius. Something like set to emit light to 60', with start of dim set to a negative number (e.g. -5) to avoid having a bright halo around the token. Or depending on the game system some people use radius 30 with a multiplier of 2 to enhance their vision when in actual light sources (dim light becomes bright, etc.). Make sure "Has Sight" is checked for the token, and "All players see light" is unchecked.  Are you selecting the token and using Ctrl-L to see as the token would see?

David M. said: Yes, the common way to set darkvision is to go in the token settings and have the token "emit" dim light to the appropriate radius. Something like set to emit light to 60', with start of dim set to a negative number (e.g. -5) to avoid having a bright halo around the token. Or depending on the game system some people use radius 30 with a multiplier of 2 to enhance their vision when in actual light sources (dim light becomes bright, etc.). Make sure "Has Sight" is checked for the token, and "All players see light" is unchecked.  Are you selecting the token and using Ctrl-L to see as the token would see? Yes, luckily the CTRL-L tip was one of the first things i saw in one of the many videos I've watched.  That -5 modifier seems so have sorted it though.  Also cleared all the drawing from that map and did it again with a smaller number of large blockers instead of hundreds of little ones and that seems to have solved the loading time issue, thanks very much. I even got to try using a light transition as it starts outside the cave and then goes inside.  So lots to do considering it my first DL map!

Great!